I've recently purchased a 1979 LS-100 Les Paul Reborn which has some non-original pickups, and I would like to reunite it with its original pickups. The helpful guy I bought it from is sending me two pickups he suspects are the originals, but neither of us is a Tokai historian. Can anyone tell me what I should look for to identify the appropriate pickups for this guitar? The pickups currently in the guitar are reputedly Tokai pickups as well and it would be interesting to verify that too, so any information about identifying and dating 70s-80s Tokai humbuckers would be greatly appreciated.

If nothing else, if you have a similar guitar and could describe your pickups (including any markings, top and bottom), that would be really helpful._________________Scott Yoho
"LawsuitFan"

Hey Mike ? how confident are you on the Hex Pole Pieces being DiMarizo? I have no idea about them, and never noticed them until that recent thread about inked serial No?s (see Love Rocks from Loudmouse & Japscott) .

I'll check out the other threads Ian mentions and I suspect Mike is right about the DiMarzios - HOWEVER - when I asked the folks at Dimarzio if they could confirm what pickups were sold to Tokai during this era, DiMarzio's Steve Blucher was kind enough to reply:

"DiMarzio never sold pickups directly to Tokai. If the pickups are ours, they were installed aftermarket."

My guess is the first sentence is correct (with "directly" being the piviotal term) and the second sentence is conjecture. Tokai certainly could have gotten DiMarzio pickups through a distributor, even if that meant they didn't get the best pricing. I'd be interested to hear any other theories.

Here's my final newbie question for the day. It seems that both LS-80s and LS-100s had solid plain tops. What's the difference between the two?_________________Scott Yoho
"LawsuitFan"

Registry has no catalogue for 79, but early 80?s catalogues specify both DiMarizio & Seymour Duncan pups in some higher model Love Rocks. Lower models usually had Gotoh pups (pretty good actually).

Re. difference between LS80 & LS100 ? all very general I?m afraid ? higher models got ?better? fittings & fewer pieces in the construction, but little consistency to it. Eg; early LS50 has 3-piece top whereas LS60 got 2-piece. Ditto mahogany back & neck ... 2-piece or 3-piece back for lower models (rarely1-piece) - neck may be 1-piece, but may also have additional ?heel fillet?. Flamed tops more likely to be veneer on later guitars, except on highest models. 1978-79 LS80 & above got 18-deg headstock angle, all 14-deg thereafter (except 320?). See 1985-86 Cat for specific examples in English. Sorry it?s so general, but you get the picture lol .

Here's some follow-up information. In further emails with Steve at DiMarzio (who was really kind and helpful), he said this:

<<Oops. I design them, but I apparently don?t always recall who we sold them too. I?m informed that we did do business directly with Tokai in the late 1970s. However, we?re pretty certain we were no longer doing so by 1985. At that point, Tokai was either using old stock or buying pickups from a distributor (which is most likely what happened). The pickups in the 1979 Tokai were most likely Super Distortions.>>

Steve also offered this help in identifying '70s DiMarzio pickups from later DiMarzios:

<<most of them had either a metal braided wire with a single conductor or a black cable with two conductors (black & white) and a solid ground wire. The baseplate legs were square (similar to Gibson HBs), rather than the short triangular footprint we adopted later. >>

Ian's tip to look at the old brochures was a good one. This link for 85 lists DiMarzios specifically in the "A"LS-100:

I guess what I've learned is that in trying to restore a pickupless 79 LS-100 a guy could do a lot worse than a pair of vintage DiMarzios, probably a Super Distortion Humbucker in the bridge and a PAF in the neck.

Re. ?heel-fillet? ? maybe the wrong terminology, but what I mean is this ? at first sight many Tokai LP necks look like 1-piece, but on closer examination you may find a small additional piece of wood at the base of the heel, ie where the neck joins the body .

Hi GOODCHAR, ? Konichiwa ? great to see you here ? Welcome to the world of Tokai .

Yes, Dimarizio pickups are good, and many early Tokais have them (Tokai before 1981), ? BUT, surprising thing is, on cheaper Tokai Guitars the GOTOH pickups sound great ? so early Tokai guitars are beautifully made (often better than Gibson), and also sound fantastic like original 1958 to 1960 Gibson ... try 1979 LS80 to see what I mean (with 50watt Marshall Plexi Head, wow!!) .

Please look at early catalogues in Tokai Registry (http://www.tokairegistry.com/), see if you can translate Japanese words for us ? would be very helpful. Maybe we can help you with English?

By the way ? I buy very nice guitars from Japan, ? from Katana (Mr Nas Tak) and from Japanoldguitar (Mr Hiro ? very nice man) .

referring to the '79 catalog the LS-100 had Dimarzio PAF's, while the LS-150 had Dimarzio PAF - Super Distortion.

The LS-100 is actually an LS-80 equipped with Dimarzio Pu's made in U.S.A. therefore an additional cost of 20k yen. There's no difference concerning construction or wood. _________________If you can't solve a problem...you are the problem. (shadocs rule!)